Posted
by
kdawsonon Friday August 01, 2008 @11:01AM
from the keep-that-cat-in-that-bag dept.

ruphus13 notes a new development in Blizzard's case against MDY, which we discussed last week. Blizzard, the maker of World of Warcraft, has now requested another injunction — to prevent the open sourcing of Glider code. Quoting: "Blizzard has asked the court for a relatively unconventional order prohibiting MDY from making the source code for its MMO Glider software available to the public, and prohibiting MDY from helping people develop other World of Warcraft automation software. Blizzard had previously asked the court to shut down MDY's WoW operations in its motion for summary judgment, but the court's summary judgment order did not address Blizzard's request. Blizzard's requests to prohibit open-source release of MDY's software and prohibit MDY's assistance in development of independent WoW bots are new to this motion — and seem likely to raise eyebrows in the open source and digital rights advocacy camps."

If I were Blizzard and he claimed the code was leaked because he was hacked, I'd probably accuse him of negligence, at the least. He won't be able to say that he got hacked because he is sofa king we todd did and thus avoid all accountability. Lawyers aren't stupid. Generally speaking.

But it's still a ridiculous lawsuit and I hope Blizzard is not able to prevail.

If I were Blizzard and he claimed the code was leaked because he was hacked, I'd probably accuse him of negligence, at the least.

Except at that point, isn't negligence considered criminal? If so, wouldn't the burden of proof be on Blizzard? It would be just as likely for MDY to covertly hand out a login and password and say it was "hacked" as it would to say that users, desperate for the software to continue existing, cracked the server on which the code resides and took said code.

It's not a question of legal. Here's my take after five plus years of reading Groklaw. (Which covers the SCOundrel fiaSCO, which is still in progress.)

It is a question of if the judge will hold you in contempt. A judge can do this for almost any reason. It is suspiciously convenient that the very source code that Blizzard was asking to suppress suddenly gets "hacked" and "leaked". It doesn't help credibility any when you earlier threatened to release it as open source.

Finally, and most importantly. If Blizzard can prove that you leaked it, and lied in court, the court can not only find you in contempt, and not only sanction you (lose your case, pay fines, etc), but you could face perjury charges. We're talking jail time here. Are you so sure you could leak it in a way that it would never come back to find you?

If your lawyer is telling the court that you got hacked and the source code was stolen and leaked, then you better not let your own lawyer know that you leaked it. Your lawyer represents you, but is first and foremost an officer of the court and must tell the truth to the judge.

Well are you not a swell guy or what???
So what do you say to the guy that is NOT cheating? "Hey that is your problem, you oughta cheat too"
This code sucks and people that develop it suck as well. They are people that do not believe rules are for them. Why don't they just go write ther own Open source versions of WoW and play with themselves. I want to play the game WITHOUT having to resort to cheat.

They do this all the time, and people are often banned for using cheats. WowGlider used to actively probe resident memory for the values of variables but now WoW checks for such activity, so Glider sacrificed accuracy for stealth by only passively watching memory and controlling the character based on various criteria. In the eyes of WoW's anti-cheating scheme, Glider really does appear to be ordinary user input - especially when the user stays at they keyboard, occasionally doing some human-like stuff such as chatting with friends.

From my experience as a MMO designer, battling automated play is actually a huge design problem. In many cases you don't want to do it by changing the code because the time and effort spent to do that are much better spent developing real game features. So in many games people take the easiest route and just outlaw automated gameplay instead of changing the design to make sure it is not possible to benefit much from it. Can't really blame anyone for that.

Still it doesn't change this Blizzard's request being utterly ridiculous. With all my genuine respect to the company, someone must have had a brainfart in this case.

Why don't they implement a challenge-response system in-game like a CAPTCHA? Ask the player some specifically worded question about some game event. You don't have to ban people outright for getting it wrong, but you definitely could do that enough that you could build a statistical profile that indicated a player was cheating. Then ban them.

"Why don't they implement a challenge-response system in-game like a CAPTCHA? Ask the player some specifically worded question about some game event."

Why don't they remove the obvious time wasting aspects of the game that turn a fun challenge into "grinding".

go kill this monster, but you are only done with X drops... wtfh?

I generally enjoy WoW but what really frustrates me are the obvious attempts to get me to play longer and therefore keep shelling out money.. like run over there and kill x monster then come back.. i come back and am given the quest to return to the same exact spot and kill y monster (that i had to kill anyway because he stands right next to X). BOOOORING!

if they spent more time developing quests (and adding to the lower level quest lines) people wouldn't want to automate their grinding (for an e.g. there is a low level crossroads quest that spawns a centaur attack on a village you have to defend against, makes you feel like you are really fighting "for the horde", lots of fun).

I'm just getting tot he high level stuff and it seems to be more along these lines.. why they don't try and improve the older work is beyond me.. that's prolly the number 1 gripe i hear about grinding. UGH WC or SFK again/ "can someone run me thru? i'll pay you gold".

Why don't they remove the obvious time wasting aspects of the game that turn a fun challenge into "grinding".

The idea behind grinding (and timesinks in general) is that you have a cheap way of keeping your players occupied. Various materials for crafting, gold, etc etc etc. In fact, why bother with creating actual content when you can keep people busy for an hour or two a day by killing the same type of monsters over and over.

kill x monster then come back [snip] kill y monster

Most RPGs suffer from this:

kill X and bring me his head for shiny coins

fetch the amulet of Y and I shall reward you handsomely

talk to Z to find out where we can find the magic donkey

Single player RPGs suffer from it, and with MMOs it's even more obvious because most people play MMOs for months. MMOs don't exactly lend themselves to epic storytelling either, because any large-scale event would affect all players. In a single player RPG you could have a character open the gates of the nine hells and have the world flooded with demons that you have to dispatch, in an MMO you can't really have that happen. "Oh great, player #239483 opened the gates to the nine hells again" "Ugh, another week of demons"

While WoW had some large scale events, such as the opening of AQ, and there was something with the undead or something, the experience is a lot less fun than when YOU are doing something.

I'm just getting tot he high level stuff and it seems to be more along these lines.

I stopped playing WoW on a regular basis when our guild started waltzing through MC. I'd noticed that casual play with friends had started to devolve to getting 40 people organized to be on time, have the correct gear and potions, spend time grinding for gold and materials and generally not having fun.

If you start spending more time preparing to have fun than actually having fun that sort of defeats the purpose of playing a game in my opinion.

why they don't try and improve the older work is beyond me

I think they did that. A few months ago an old guildmate of mine sent me a mail talking about new questhubs in low level areas (the area where Onyxia is located, I forgot the name). The thing is that there's very little to gain for Blizzard to add new low level quests. Most of their playerbase is maxed out and creates a new character or two to keep themselves occupied while they're waiting on new high level content. I think most players will start going away if there isn't new high level content regularly than low level content.

The reputation system has got to be the most miserable part of the game. Even worse than the slot machine system they have for boss drops ("Ok, after 4 hours of running this instance you get...squat! Try again!"). Factions seem to be breeding like mad too. Soon we'll have the Cenarion Coffee Club faction to grind or some other time suck.

Gaining reputation also involves running the same dungeons over, and over...and over again. Two or three times may be fun but by the eigth time it is pretty muc

You can't be serious. CAPTCHAs are annoying enough on normal websites already. Many people seem to accept that they have to only pass through them once during registration, for the sake of their own good, but asking them every once in a while is surely going to hurt. Losing customers to the inconvenience of protection measures added to retain customers is not exactly the price anyone would be looking to pay.

Admittedly this analogy is going a bit too far, but requiring every user to confirm every time that t

That's the wrong approach.You shouldn't focus on stopping automated game play.You need to make changes so it's not more beneficial then non automated play.

I ahve a programmable keyboard. I don't mean those ones with software running on the machine, I mean a keyboard with memory I can program.This is completly undetectable to the computer. I could automate all kinds of things, it's what computers do.

From my experience as a MMO designer, battling automated play is actually a huge design problem.

I am a professional programmer, and I would say that it is more than that. I would say that it is fundamentally impossible to prevent botting on remote clients without a client being completely locked down with DRM. And as Microsoft has already discovered, that is a hard sell.

You have the same fundamental problem that media creators do: You have to give people information, but prevent them from using it in ways you don't approve of. This problem will not go away any time soon.

The simpler problem of stopping WoW botting is easy. People bot in WoW because 'the grind' to level or gain faction rep is long and boring. Change the game so that people aren't rewarded for sinking so much time into the game. Problem solved.

So, the court has found the program can only be used for something illegal, and the company should not be allowed to sell it - but you are fine with they should be able to give it away to others who can then do illegal things with it.

Bit like they arrest a dope dealer then he should be allowed to give his stash away to someone else.

The problem lies beyond your issue of cheating in an online game, which on the concern-o-meter is a lot less important than a company like blizzard getting to control someone else's source code.
This sort of precedent could be very scary. Any company that can find a judge who would believe their IP is somehow infringed by other software that is or is not open source could then get control over how that code is handled? no, that cannot fly at all.

This case already had the shitty ruling that Blizzard gets to lord over what other software you're allowed to run on your own computer, just because their (bullshit, ought-to-be-unenforceable) EULA says so. That's a scary precedent too.

Exactly. Now, Microsoft can say, "You may only install Windows on this computer if you never install OpenOffice on this computer." If you install OpenOffice, your Windows license becomes invalid. Tough luck.

You may only legally copy this post to the contents of your memory or distribute it to others, if you do whatever I command you to (in the future) and also send me 10% of your income every month in cash equivalent.

Oh yeah, and you must also howl at the full moon every month while standing on one leg in a public place.

And if you are someone who writes EULAs (or those stupid Corporate Email Signatures), please move to Sudan and eat sand for the rest of your hopefully short life.

But lawsuits and the government shouldn't be the ones to give you a cheater free experience on a WoW Server hosted by Blizzard.

Blizzard should be the one to police it's virtual world. Blizzard runs the servers, Blizzard wrote the code, Blizzard collects money from paying customers like yourself who want to play WoW without worrying about other people botting or hacking.

Blizzard should take an active role in preventing/eliminating things they don't want in their world. If botting is going be against BLIZZARD'S RULES the punishment for botting should be ENFORCED BY BLIZZARD.

I have zero problem with Blizzard banning me/terminating my account/flagging my CD-Key as invalid if I'm caught violating their rules. Should it be *ILLEGAL* to break the rules Blizzard makes up for their virtual world? HELL NO.

That's like me making a web forum and telling everyone it's against the rules to post images...then taking to court anyone who writes an HTML book that includes the IMG tag. My rules that I've arbitrarily decided are NOT the law.

If some guy wants to publish the source to something he wrote, why shouldn't he be able to? Because some company somewhere doesn't like it? That seems a bit unfair to me. I'm sure Microsoft wasn't happy about Linux and the Open Source alternative OSes that exist. I'm sure you could argue that Microsoft's bottom line has been hurt from the OS community *AND* that much of the functionality of the OS communities products are based off of MS Software (Open Office can open.xls files - if not for Excel they wouldn't be able to do that, right?).

No, I'd tell them to play the game however they want. The presence of a cheater doesn't change your character, you can just go elsewhere and find your own random monsters.

In fact, a cheater is mostly indistinguishable from a WoW-Addict in that both go up levels far faster than you. The cheater's skills probably aren't as good because they let the bot do the work, so you should probably look at cheaters as big bags of cool toys/cash that are relatively unguarded.

But honestly, getting bent out of shape because other people want to play 80th level content without wading through 20-80th level content. Oh noes! We must use the courts to make people play the game properly!

Actually, I'd like to see that happen. Then Blizzard will get the bug-on-the-windshield treatment.

Regardless, Blizzard has been on my list of companies that I will never do business with for some time now. Looks like that's not going to change anytime soon. Blizzard is one of those companies that is perfectly willing to set legal precedent that hurts a lot of people and organizations that have nothing to do with gaming. That makes them corporate c

If there isn't, it'll be utterly hilarious. Blizzard will have carte blanche to jump down their collective throats, on the grounds that they're both evading the injunction against Glider development, and intentionally attempting to harm the WoW service in retaliation for that injunction.

If the Glider software doesn't contain any copyright infringement (which MDY may be hard-pressed to prove - really, dunno), can Blizzard legally prevent them from Open Sourcing the software? It would seem to me that that's really not going to fly that well.

Blizzard is stance on that Glider contains copyrighted and protected property. One can't declare something open source if one doesn't own it to begin with.

Of course all of this maneuvering hinges on whether or not Glider did their work cleanly. I personally don't favor this approach where it seems to be easier just to continually combat the thing better technology.

Solution:Submit the entire Glider source code as an exhibit, to prove that it does not contain copyrighted or protected property. I imagine an expert witness could be found who could analyze it reliably. (Unfortunately, PAYING such a person would be more difficult.)

If Glider was written undersource control, it would be interesting to see the lifecycle of the tool, also.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the botter's actions. I'm a proponent of 'The way it was meant to be played', but one company blasting another company's ability to release a piece of software - regardless of what it does, when it does not violate a copyright - is a dangerous prescedent to set.

As I've delved into Diablo 2 once again (after watching the imho downright fantastic gameplay video of Diablo 3) over the last few days, I've seen with some amazement that some of the most widely used Battle.net cheats are actually licensed under the GNU GPL - there's even some kind of application framework for interacting with the game programmatically floating around on the web...It's really interesting to see such development, because back in the days when I really was into all that gaming stuff, there was hardly ever a way to take a look how some trainer's/cheat's author does thing XY. Cool, in a way.:)

the most widely used Battle.net cheats are actually licensed under the GNU GPL - there's even some kind of application framework for interacting with the game programmatically floating around on the web...

The MMO Asheron's Call, a contemporary of better-known Everquest, has had a framework like this for years, known as Decal [decaldev.com].

Interestingly, the developers of asheron's call (Turbine) chose to embrace the 3rd party development community. As a result, players have used the framework to extend and improve the g

Been well over a year since I played WoW, so how has the bot trouble been? They were always more annoying than anything else, and adversely affected some of the economy, but that was about it. Massive bot use would seriously affect gameplay, though...Blizzard may be better off getting some people to corrupt the stuff coming out of pirate bay or something. Distribute bad bots to people who are trying...or they could reduce the grind. Or something. I dunno.

I think the last time I saw something that was obviously a bot outside of a battleground was almost 6 months ago. In the battlegrounds it seems there's almost always a couple of leeching bots, but (as far as I can tell) it's not nearly as bad as it was a year ago (and it's not like I'm gonna win any BG's on my alliance toon anyway, so a couple of leechers don't matter so much...:P)

I do play WoW quite a bit (maybe 10-15 hours a week), and I'm also an open source user and contributor. Maybe they'll send Ri

A) Glider isn't exactly hard to create.B) Makes Blizzard look like bullies..again.C) Now there are several people who are going to create a clone.D) It's impact on the game, emotional views aside, isn't really that great.

Stopping Glider is a bandage on a bigger issue they refuse to actually address, farming.Now, farming isn't nearly as bad as everyone makes it out to be. In MMO's that allowed groups to control areas, it was horrible, but you can't really do that in WoW.

Here are some thing they could do:1) Don't let anyone mine/pick anything that there skill level makes gray to them.2) put some random drift into movement.3) limit the price you can sell something for on the AH to 10 times what a vendor would pay4) don't allow the transfer of more then 100GP a time. Maybe a one time unlimited amount per month.

All of those may be easy to implement but but just because it's easy doesn't make it good (perverted jokes to the contrary...). Those changes would be significant quality of life hits that would frustrate the average user who doesn't even know what Glider is and cause more problems than what they would solve.

Don't let anyone mine/pick anything that there skill level makes gray to them

This might be trivial to implement, but I'm guessing the players would be pissed. I've only played for a week, but I'm picking "gray" herbs all the time. What am I supposed to do to get them? Buy them at the auction? Bleh. And who would I buy them from? I'm using up most of my (non-grey) picked herbs to increase my alchemy skill, so I don't think there would be enough to go around. I guess some people could make good money focusi

Here are some thing they could do:1) Don't let anyone mine/pick anything that there skill level makes gray to them.2) put some random drift into movement.3) limit the price you can sell something for on the AH to 10 times what a vendor would pay4) don't allow the transfer of more then 100GP a time. Maybe a one time unlimited amount per month.

All of these would be pretty trivial to implement.

Jesus, you clearly don't play WoW. These are terrible ideas.

1) People often need materials that are "grey" skill level. From useful potions to metals for engineering, etc. Plus, one of the advantages of having multiple characters is that one of your characters with an appropriate skill can gather materials for another one. This idea would completely break the tradeskill system.

2) This would be ok I guess, just really annoying since it would mean you'd have to constantly nanny your character while on autorun

Sure, you can ban bots and you can void licenses when you catch someone, but bottom line: People won't stop as long as two criterions are not matched

1. The game is interesting enough to be played instead of botted.2. The game is complicated enough to make botting pointless.

Why do people bot? Two reasons. First, they're goldfarmers and want to make as much gold as possible without having to do it themselves. And second, some parts of the game are just boring tedium nobody wants to do but has to.

So what all comes down is time sinks. People want to avoid time sinks. They don't want to sit in one spot and farm the same crapmobs for hours to get their $number $item for $quest. That's boring and tedious. They don't want to farm $mob for gold to buy their mount, that's boring and tedious.

Give people what they want to play and you have no problem with bots. Simple as that. When you have a problem with people botting through your game, all it says is that you installed something in the game that should keep the people occupied but they generally hate to do it (aka time sink).

I don't think you understand game psychology. There is a crossover between a smooth, slow progression and long-term enjoyability.

If a game had no grind, players would lose interest quickly--the rewards need to be spaced out and not constant. In order for a good experience to stand out from the grind, there has to be a grind.

If you give people "what they want to play", they will not enjoy it at all. I can give you a game that you win at the push of a button--no grind at all. Would that make you happy?

When I used to find myself spending too much time on any game, a truly reliable way to make me sick of it is to cheat--to get everything I want as fast as I want. End of all my interest in the game within a couple days to a week. (this is how I broke my original addictions to Diablo and Diablo years ago)

Sure you think you want to be handed all these things you cheat for, but if that was really all you wanted, why not play single player? There are massive, undetectable cheats for that.

The only reason to cheat on b.net is to compare yourself to people who don't--to somehow give yourself an edge up against those who don't because, hmm, because it makes you feel better about yourself maybe? That's just pathetic.

Think about it for a while. Analyze what you play and why you play it. From your statement you obviously play a lot, but do you ever really think about what you enjoy about gaming? What you really want? Again, from your email, I have to guess no...

I don't think you understand game psychology. There is a crossover between a smooth, slow progression and long-term enjoyability.

If a game had no grind, players would lose interest quickly--the rewards need to be spaced out and not constant.

So you're saying any day now we can expect Civ IV Glider? Mass Effect Glider? Guild Wars Glider?
I'm just picking on some games I play and enjoy. Civ IV is a perfect example. Sure it has a "grind" between the point that you decide on your plan and actually implement it. But what's this? Civ IV lets you set up a build order ahead of time and automate the process? Or it even lets you turn over the city building to an AI so you don't have to do the boring part?
I guess we don't need a Civ IV Glider be

Certainly getting everything handed to you makes a game boring. But making the game tedious doesn't make it interesting either.

What I want from a game is a challenge. My goal is to prove that yes, I can do it. What do I prove by slaying a bazillion of the very same mob for some drop (i.e. "farming")? At best that I have no life and/or too much spare time on my hands. But that I can play? C'mon, get serious.

WoW is no challenge, though, until very late in the game. Why? Because everyone levels (bots...) his w

The real problem is the fact that World of Warcraft (and every MMO released to date) is designed with such shoddy gameplay mechanics that people would rather have a computer play most of the game for them. The problem isn't that some people automate their characters, the problem is that a large percentage of the game is so mind-numbingly boring and repetitive that people would go to any length to avoid it and just play the good stuff. Is there anything wrong with this? Absolutely not, these developers (again, this applies to ALL MMOs) need to learn to design games that are fun the entire time you're playing them.

Put it another way, consider what would be the case if WoW were a single player game. The immediate conclusion everybody would draw was that the gameplay is substandard, because they are so tempted to automate it. Make it multiplayer and all of a sudden this is different? No. What's really going on here? Blizzard puts as many artificual, tedious roadblocks as they can get away with into the game, and the reason they do so is to extend the duration of their subscriptions as long as possible. When somebody decides to automate the process, Blizzard isn't protecting their player base, they're protecting their profit margins. They're saying, "You'll play this game OUR way so we can milk you for as much money as possible." So I say to Blizzard, cure the disease, not the symptom. Make a game that people don't want to have a computer play most of it for them and you won't have these problems.

Can't figure out how to make a game that's both fun and takes a long time to get tired of? Hire some actually talented game designers. We know you can take a design somebody else came up with and polish the mechanics to to a shiny gleam (see: every Blizzard game to date). Now's the time to innovate.

You know, I always thought that the RIAA and MPAA would destroythe software industry. I figured that they would push throughlaws that suited them and to hell with everyone else. I figuredthat they would create laws that burden everyone else that doessomething with a microprocessor. I figured that million dollarOracle databases would eventually be burdened down with anti-piracynonsense to prevent pirates from using old IBMs or Suns.

I didn't think it would be the likes of Blizzard to trash theindustry with really stupid laws or heinously egregious precedents.

the STUPID, the OVERLY MORONIC argument blizzard is using is that the program 'modifies the wow software running in THE MEMORY'.

of course, that is trying to fool the old, senile court judges. everyone who has used computers a bit knows that when a program runs in memory, MANY aspects of it are modified on constant basis, and a few million times a second or more. windows kernel code modifies the wow software running in the memory, wow software ITSELF modifies itself in the memory, its memory footprint changes, it reads and writes data from disk, and to network and modifies itself accordingly.

a computer's memory is something too complicated for a lawyer to fathom. they shouldnt sweat it.

Yup, but the problem is that unless it's overturn in appeal, then the judgment stands that this software (in whatever incarnation of licensing) is illegal. Open-sourcing online would basically be a war-call, basically putting it beyond anyone's ability to contain or control. However, doing so might also taint any other projects that make use of the code, as the argument "this software X uses software Y which was already ruled illegal in the courts."

Basically, opening the source would be just be a revenge move. It's good for those that want to mod/hack WoW, but bad for blizzard, not overly beneficial to the creator (not going to make them any cash), and not really beneficial to the image of FOSS community either.

I'm on the fence regarding the legal theories being applied. I think Blizzard should have recourse to ensure that people are playing the game within intended parameters, so long as expectations are made clear before money changes hands. I also think that stretching laws to get the desired result is always the wrong approach, and I just haven't decided if I think that's happening here.

But regardless, if you're going to insult the technical knowledge of those you disagree with, at least get the basic facts

It violates the TOS of another software product. That doesn't make the software illegal. I could write in my TOS that you must not run it on Windows, does that make Windows illegal? I kinda doubt it.

It violates the TOS of Blizzard to use the software in combination with WoW, which may void your license. But "illegal"? At least be correct with the terms you use, it's not like there's any lack of term confusion in the vicinity of copyrights, we don't need more people contributing to it.

IANAL, but I think the case is that it's not criminally illegal, but it does offer a basis to file a claim under contract law. If I recall correctly, it is something along the lines of a 3rd party willfully affecting a breach of contract.

Could you please explain that? When I make it possible for you to break a contract I am liable? For what? Your breach of contract? It's not like I make you use it. By that logic, any gun shop is in deep shit by the moment they sold their first gun.

The basic point when it comes to 3rd party contract interference is intent. If you make a product or provide a service with the explicit intent of causing a breach of contract, the affected party can file a lawsuit claiming damages or requesting other court intervention.

Intentional Interference with Contractual RelationsA tort that arises when a third party induces a contracting party to breach the contract with another party.
The following elements must be shown:
- A valid, enforceable contract between the contracting parties.
- Third-party knowledge of this contract.
- Third-party inducement to breach the contract.

The fact that the software is called "WoW Glider" and that it is marketed and designed specifically for the sole purpose cheating in WoW carries it safely over the line from "making available" to "inducement to breach the contract."

Don't bring firearms into this, it's a completely different ballpark. They have other legitimate uses.

IAANAL, but is a breach of TOS the same as a breach of contract? That is, is a usage license the same as a contract?

EULAs are very sticky [wikipedia.org]. Most of the issues stem from whether software is "licensed or sold," or from the fact that the consumer has little recourse if he or she does not accept the license ("No returns on opened software")

Terms of Service contracts, the type which you agree to prior to the exchange of funds or use of the service, are more cut and dry. Unless a clause is unconscionable, it is just as binding as any other contract.

To make things even more complicated and hard to research, many lawyer types and media outlets do not distinguish between the two of these, or the sometimes confusing terms "clickwrap license," "browserwrap license," "shrinkwrap license," etc.

Glider was interfering with Blizzard's contractual relationship with its customers

So basically, if you wanted to use this software as a reference for something completely unrated to WoW, no, it's not illegal. However, if you use it in full or part to interact with WoW, you're likely going to be sued (contact/civil law, not criminal) or your project shut-down. Being FOSS doesn't make a project immune to such things, look at the unfortunate situation with BNETd

I would argue that Glider is hacking a computer network. Bear with me here.

The tool manipulates a secured line of communication between a client and a server to get a desired set of results and hides the fact that it is doing so. You could call it SQL injection, replay-attack, man in the middle, etc. It is the same thing as hacking a shared network.

A different example. Do you mind if I write software to run on my ATM that when it connects to a bank just manipulates a little data. Maybe transfers some a

No, my rights and yours are universal. The government is involved because we create a government to protect our rights.

This "Conservative" ideology that "our rights apply only to protection from the government" is just wrong. The Constitution specifies, among other protected rights, that we cannot be slaves - prohibiting not just the government from owning slaves. The Constitution of course instructs the government to protect us from robbery, murder and all kinds of other deprivations of our rights.

Our rights are inalienable. Not just inalienable by the government, but by anyone. We create governments to protect us from that alienation, even while the governments we create are themselves not empowered, and often explicitly prohibited to be sure there's no confusion, to deprive us of those rights. But are created with the power to protect our rights.

It's not what they did, it's how they did it. It's a damn shame that they chose to use the insane 'copyright on RAM contents' argument. They did have a reasonably legitimate complaint, since (as I understand it, at least) glider causes problems on their servers which they have authority over. Trying to tell people what they can and can't do with their own game installations on their own machines is an absolute joke, but trying to set terms for what people are allowed to do on a communal service with its own rules is fair enough.

To fulfil Slashdot tradition and make a somewhat clunky and inappropriate car analogy: I can attach rockets to my car and blast along at 300mph on my own land and it's none of the manufacturer's damn business. If I then paid them to take it on their test track which had a rule saying "No rocket cars" they'd be well within their rights to kick me out.

Blizzard absolutely have a right to control what happens on their servers. Notice though that this injunction is not about their servers. It's about what code is released on the internet - which Blizzard doesn't own.

It's within their right to say "you can't use that code on our servers" - and they have a right to enforce that rule however they please (delete violating accounts or whatever). However, it's clearly not within their right to say "you can't use that code anywhere, or even have it, or even look at it."

In the midst of all this frothing-at-the-mouth has anyone ever actually bothered reading Blizzard's response [virtuallyblind.com] as to why the concerns of Public Knowledge [virtuallyblind.com] really don't apply to games like WoW (Games which you must connect to centralized servers only after agreeing to a plethora of EULA and ToU agreements and cannot access any game content otherwise). This case if you examine it deep enough obviously has no ramifications beyond preventing further hijacking of entertainment service providers such as Blizzard through World of Warcraft.

Can anyone give a single example of how this narrow ruling can possibly have a chilling effect on peoples "right" to do anything other than ruin an online community by violating agreement after agreement to effectively ruin a (game) market through unchecked greed? I bet you can't.

As per the response Blizzard filed to Public Knowledge's concerns:

"Accordingly, Blizzard's WoW EULA clearly constitutes a license rather than a sale even under the 'test' formulated by Amicus. In this way it is also similar to the sort of license agreements that are part of almost every piece of software sold in the United States."

Curiosity... can you justify your argument in any practical way? If a bot plays 10 hours while I'm at work, and a college kid on break plays 10 hours while I'm at work, we both wind up in the same place at the same time. Neither of us has an advantage.

WoW leveling requires exactly zero skill, same with resource acquisition. Since leveling and resource acquisition in WoW is a matter of time expenditure - by design, mind you - why does it matter whether or not a player puts in that time, or a bot does?

I don't play WoW because I generally get bored with it after about a month, so this doesn't really affect me one way or the other. Your response, however, seems mostly based on emotion. I'm looking for pragmatic reasons to not allow botting.

If you actually played WoW, you would understand the reasons against botting. However you don't, but it doesn't seems to stop you from trolling for comments...

looking for a clear explanation of what the difference is between getting to L60/70 in 10 days with a bot, or

I will buy more things, I like that they try to get rid of cheaters and people abusing the game for profit. Those people just destroy the game for all others.

I doubt blizzard do this for themself as much as for their costumers (which if there was lots of cheaters and people grinding for profit would not have been future costumers and therefor would affect Blizzard themself to.)

WoW is not all that repetitive, especially considering that the idea is to spend many months playing it between content updates.

There are LOTS of things Blizzard does to make WoW a lot less of a grind, big one being daily quests, if you don't know why daily quests prevent the grind, then you don't know WoW well enough to be commenting.

Blizzard also does lots of other things to prevent the grind:- Rested XP, while you are logged out, you earn "rest", when you log back in, you earn double XP per mob kill until your rest runs out.- When Blizzard introduced Arenas (a competive PvP system), they made it so that consumables such as potions or elixirs cannot be used at all. While this is partly due to balancing issues, it also means that people don't end up farming gold/mats for these potions, because while they can be a huge competitive advantage, they are also a huge money/materials sink when you are using a lot of them.- In their upcoming expansion, they are limiting the amount of consumables that can be used by players in certain conditions. For example, you will only be able to use 1 single potion for a boss fight, this will mean that people wont end up blowing lots of potions on a single boss fight. Another example being that you won't be affected by more than one set of Drums at a time, this is also good as right now the top raiding guilds had lots of their members abandon a profession and take up Leatherworking instead. And all this just to get the most possible "power" for their raid group. When you aren't levelling at the same time, getting a profession from 0 to max is exceptionally time and/or money intensive.

Personally, what I get most out of WoW is the social connection, I tend to use VoIP a lot with my family and friends who also play. WoW is just a place we hang out, it's like a sports bar or something. WoW for me is something I can do to pass the time between work, going out or sleeping. When I am at home and not playing WoW or sleeping, I do other things like read, watch TV, program.

I've seen macroing from the Ultima Online days and I've seen Glider use from the more modern World of Warcraft. They are nowhere near the same thing nor are they anywhere near the same realm of ease of use. You really are sounding like you've never seen just how easy Glider makes it to play your character without ever actually playing your character. Take a look [youtube.com] at how things work.